


Blood Brothers

by BrownieFox



Series: If At First You Don't Succeed [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Nightmares, Nosebleed, Pre-Series, Sam POV, Time Travel, Visions, Weechesters, blood tw, with series events tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:07:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21679477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrownieFox/pseuds/BrownieFox
Summary: Sam is having bad nightmares and rests up at Bobby's. There's an unexpected visitor.
Relationships: Dean Winchester & Sam Winchester
Series: If At First You Don't Succeed [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1364314
Comments: 10
Kudos: 117





	Blood Brothers

_ The boy is curled up in his bed, clutching his hair. _

_ He’s driven everybody away. _

_ They knock.  _

_ He sobs and tells them, orders them to go away. _

_ They obey without another word. _

_ He sobs harder.  _

_ There is a knock on his door. _

_ “Go away.” He says. His voice sounds raw from choking on his tears. He doesn’t understand what’s going on, and it’s left him terrified of himself, of the words that lie on his tongue. People need to stay away from him. For their own good. He puts his hands to his throat, as if he wants to squeeze it until he stops breathing, until he stops speaking, but he feels so lost and confused and his hands wrap around him in the poorest simulation of a hug.  _

_ There is a knock at the door. _

_ “I’m not leaving until you let me talk to you.”  _

_ The boy blinks.  _

_ The door opens. _

_ And then… and then…! _

Sam gasps awake, as if he’s breaking the surface of the water after being submerged for almost too long. There’s something that flashes even now through his mind, so fast and uncoordinated he can’t make sense of it. Footsteps, a hand taking another hand, words that may as well be in a different language. 

The teen groans and turns over, pressing the palms of his hands into his eye sockets as if it’s possible to push the headache - no, the migraine - out of his head. It had been there for two days now, starting off a bit more on the mild side and progressively getting worse and worse. It made it hard to think, hard to concentrate, hard to do absolutely anything. Sam managed to tear one of his hands away from blocking out the world and put it under his nose to confirm his suspicions of what the dampness he could feel there - distantly, everything felt so distant - was. He manages to crack his eye open just enough to see the red smeared on his hand. It was over the rusty-red of previous checks that Sam had done each time he’d woken up from naps that were pretty big failures as he woke up each time, feeling absolutely no better.

There’s a hand on his back, rubbing it in soothing circles, and a bit of the tension drains out of Sam. He doesn’t feel any better physically, but he feels safer immediately. He pulls his other hand away from his eyes, though they stay closed, and something is pressed into his hand. By now he knows it’s a tissue, it has been all the other times, and he uses it to wipe the blood off his face. The music John is playing is low, thankfully, and neither of his family members say anything for a while. The rumble of the impala is like a lullaby, and the smell of it is the smell of home, and Dean is by his side. Sam is pain, but at least he’s not stitching himself up in a motel bathroom.

On the downside, this isn’t something that can be fixed by stitches and alcohol. 

(Not that John hadn’t tried with the alcohol)

It’s been ages since they’ve been to Bobby’s place, Sam swears he can feel the turns of the car and knows in his bones that they’ve arrived even before the car stops and Dead gently shakes his shoulder in case he had fallen asleep again.

“Hey, wake up.” Dean’s voice is quiet quiet quiet. Sam forces his eyes open. His migraine has managed to tone down enough that some thought is possible, that he thinks he’ll be able to get out of the car and make it to Bobby’s couch to curl up until his brain finishes liquidizing and leaking out his nose. 

Sam is lead out of the car, holding his brother’s hand like he’s five years old again, but he can’t bring himself to car and apparently neither can Dean as he holds Sam’s hand, rubbing his thumb across Sam’s hand. Sam only opens his eyes when it’s absolutely necessary, the sun far brighter than it has any right to be. 

“-look into it?” 

“Of course I will, and until then I’m more than happy to watch the kid.” 

Sam catches the tail-end of whatever conversation John and Bobby were having. He and Dean breeze right past them into the house, and Sam almost cries when Dean in the soft voice tells him they’re going upstairs. He just wants to collapse on the floor and melt into a pile of nothing. Nevertheless, he makes the journey up the stairs, to the room that he and Dean used to share whenever John dropped them off here in the past. Some part of him realizes that the beds are still there, are still made, and when he peeks his eyes open sees that everything is just where it used to be. The room has been untouched, has just been waiting for them. 

Sam collapses onto his bed, tugging the blanket over his head. Dean sits at the edge and rubs his back a bit more. 

“Don’t worry, Bobby’ll figure out what’s wrong.” Dean reassures him. Sam makes an agreeing grunt. “We’ll be back, I promise.” Sam makes an appreciative grunt. If this continues it’s possible Sam may be able to create a whole new language comprised entirely of grunts. 

Something that is definitely not a tissue is pressed into Sam’s hand. His brow scrunches as he rolls it around his hand. The grunt he makes this time is upset, but the dip in the bed disappears and Sam forces himself to sit up again and open his eyes and mouth and say,

“No.” 

Dean is halfway to the door. He turns around. He doesn’t bother hiding his worry, though he does manage a smile. 

“You need it more.” Dean insists. 

“I’m with Bobby, I’ll be safe.” Sam holds the amulet out, letting it dangle from his fingers. “Please, Dean, I need to know you’re gonna be safe.”

And it’s just a necklace, and Sam knows that, and Dean knows that, and they’re hunters and there’s no such thing as being safe, not really.

Sam gives the best puppy dog eyes one can when they have a migraine and are now a teenager.

Dean sighs and takes the amulet back, slipping it over his head and rolling his eyes for good measure. Sam closes his eyes and falls back to the bed with a smirk on his face. Dean shoves his shoulder and scoffs at Sam.

“Alright princess, have a nice stay in the palace.” He says because things had been far too mushy the past few hours. Sam smiles smugly. He wants to say that Dean is the worst knight ever, and ask if that makes Bobby the dragon, and point out that he’s not trapped here or anything. Instead of saying any of that, the migraine spikes and he buries himself even deeper into the bed. Dean cards his hands through Sam’s hair one last time. 

Sam drifts into another restless sleep. 

oOo

_ It’s a different boy.  _

_ A different boy than any of the others. It’s never the same person twice. _

_ There’s crumbled cans around his feet. There are holes in the walls around him, and tears in his clothes, and broken glass scattered across the floor, sparking as if there are diamonds everywhere.  _

_ This boy isn’t crying.  _

_ There’s a grim kind of acceptance, a grim kind of fear.  _

_ Two adults stand at the door, talking in hushed voices. _

_ A third voice joins them. _

_ “I can help.” _

_ The third adult steps into the room and- _

oOo

Sam wakes up again and groans again pulls his pillow over his head already prepared to block out the world. There’s a dull pounding in his head, like his heart has decided that the real estate up there is superior to his chest. Sam thinks this and realizes it’s stupid and in the same moment realizes that thinking doesn’t hurt. 

Slowly, he pulls the pillow off his head, eyes still closed. 

The migraine - no, headache, just a headache - doesn’t get any worse. 

Sam opens his eyes and he doesn’t want to immediately die. 

Had he just needed some real rest? 

Then Sam takes stock of his surroundings.

The bed has been moved from its location against two walls to the middle of the room. The end table had been moved accordingly so that it was still right within reach, though the lamp had been taken off and replaced with a bowl of broth that was still warm when Stan touched it. There was a book there too, one that Sam didn’t recognize. The cover read  _ ‘101 Ways To Kill A Demon’  _ and Sam’s eyebrows raised. Demons weren’t that common of a thing, how somebody had managed to find out 101 different ways to kill them was a mystery to Sam, but one he was more than happy to find out by actually reading the book.

There was also - and this was the most interesting thing - a salt circle surrounding the bed. 

Sam knelt in front of it, rubbing the fine gains between his fingers and licking them cautiously. Yep, definitely salt. 

“Careful you don’t break that.” 

Sam flailed about as he turned to look at the doorway, caught completely off guard by the unexpected and nearly unfamiliar voice. 

Seth stood there, arms crossed, leaning against the limen and the picture of casual. Sam’s mouth opened and closed without knowing what to say. He finally settled on,

“What are you doing here?” 

“I’m exchanging some translations with Bobby. And helping you out.” Seth nods down to the salt. 

“I’m not a demon.” Sam says and is tempted to toss the book at the stranger. Sam scowls and, oddly enough, Seth’s passive expression brightens and he gives a bark of a laugh that looks like it surprises him as much as it surprises Sam. The laugh is a nice thing, and kind of reminds Sam of Dean’s when Dean has found something he finds to be purely funny. Not the dark kind of humor that seems to get more and more common, but like a good joke. 

“Of course you’re not.” Seth says, and he’s not the stone figure that Sam still remembers from the dream he’d had the first night after meeting Seth. The man has a small smile on his face. It’s reassuring. 

“But… why did you put me in a salt circle?” There’s no doubt in Sam’s mind that this was Seth’s doing, not Bobby’s. 

“I just recognized what you’re going through. You should drink your broth, by the way. Bobby made it for you.” Seth strides into the room until he’s standing just outside of the circle. “It’s a… demon curse, I guess you could say. It won’t go away completely, but the circle is helping to block most of it.”

“But we haven’t run into a demon!” Sam protests immediately. Not him, not Dean, not John. Seth looks off to the side of the room. 

“It’s a demon curse.” He repeats, sounding more sure of himself. “Drink your broth and get some rest.

Seth leaves the room.

Sam drinks his broth, but instead of going back to sleep he leafs through the book of Seth left him. 

oOo

_ Shadows swirl around her. _

_ She reaches out to them, but her hand hesitates just before touching them.  _

_ A hand reaches for her. _

_ “Come with me.”  _

_ A plea.  _

_ She looks to the shadows, towards the voice. _

_ “But it’s right there.” She insists. _

_ “Trust me.”  _

_ A second plea. _

_ The shadows swirl faster.  _

_ Her hand drops. _

_ The shadows disperse. _

_ Her hand lifts.  _

_ A hand with a ragged and gnarled scar takes it. _

oOo

Sam stays still when he wakes up. The quiet whispers - loud enough for him to hear, quiet enough that they’re not the reason he woke up - keep him still. His brother and John have taught him how to wake up without showing that you’ve woken up, how to make the most of a situation where your enemy isn’t currently counting you as a threat. And sure, the whisperers aren’t an enemy, but catching whispers has never been a bad thing. What you don’t know can kill you, so hoard information like it’s gold. 

“Can’t believe I missed him being awake.” Bobby huffs. 

“He probably wouldn’t have been so standoff-ish if you’d been there.” Seth admits. Sam silently agrees. “He’ll wake up again. Poor kid’s having a hard time.”

“You know more about this than me. Think he’ll be able to leave the circle?” Bobby asked. There’s not an immediate response, and Sam imagines that Seth had made some kind of gesture Sam hadn’t been able to see. 

“Probably? I wouldn’t advise it for too long, though. The demon’s got a pretty good hold on him.” Seth sighs. There’s the sound of the man’s ridiculously long hair brushing his shoulders as he shakes his head. 

“What did Sam do to deserve this kind of shit?” Bobby says almost too soft for Sam to hear. It’s not a question that’s supposed to be answered, not really, but Seth answered anyway.

“It’s not Sam’s fault. In fact, there was a kid or two I’ve come across that were having their own problems. I’ve got them stable for now, and there’s some more leads I’m planning to check on, but I’m going to take this down at it’s source.”

It’s a promise, and it holds the same amount of power as when Dean had said he’d be back. Sam believe Seth, and knows that Bobby does too.

“You be careful out there son. Demons aren’t something to be taken lightly.” Bobby warned Seth. 

Seth has similar laugh to Dean. This laugh, though, it’s the dark humor laugh that makes Sam turn away uncomfortably from whatever brought it out of Dean. 

“Don’t worry about it Bobby.” 

Sam doesn’t feel bad for the demon. But a shiver goes up his spine at Seth’s words and he knows with a surety he can’t define, can’t describe, that the demon is going to get everything coming to him. 

Seth and Bobby leave the doorway, and Sam ‘wakes up’, leafing through the book a bit more. He leaves the circle to go to the bathroom and go downstairs. The migraine starts to come back right away and Sam resists retreating back to the relative peace of the salt circle. Bobby greats him and smiles and asks if he’s up to tossing a ball around (not really, but he does so anyway because it’s Bobby).

He doesn’t see Seth anywhere. 

The Man of Letters has already left.

oOo

_ There’s a man with yellow eyes and a cruel smirk. _

_ He spreads his arms out.  _

_ “Kill me, kill me the meatsuit!” _

_ Seth reaches his hand out.  _

_ He clenches it into a fist. _

_ Blood pours freely from his nose. _

_ He doesn’t so much as flinch as the man with the yellow eyes screams and screams and screams. _

_ oOo _

A man stands atop a pile of cars.

In a rustle of feathers and wings, he’s gone. 

**Author's Note:**

> progress of this fic is slow, but we're going! Hurray! A part two! I do have a vague but not too vague idea of how the next parts go. There'd probably be... five more? give or take one or two? 
> 
> please comment with things that you hope to see! I have several other fics i'm hoping to work on over the holidays, so it may be a bit until the next fic


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